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Solar Eclipse in 1097 May Be Rock Carving¹ Subject

古代雕刻记载天文景观

More than 900 years ago, the Pueblo² people were thriving in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon³. While they were there, the region experienced what the whole country is looking forward to on August 21st: a total solar eclipse. Theirs took place in the year 1097—and they may have left a record of the event.

900多年前，普韦布洛人在新墨西哥州的查科峡谷中繁衍生息。彼时，他们生活的地区发生了令整个国家都翘首以待的8月21日日全食。那次现象发生在1097年——当时的人可能对其作了记载。

\“I spotted⁴ this very peculiar⁵ petroglyph, which was a round object.”

“我发现了这个圆形的非常奇特的岩石雕刻。”

Kim Malville is a retired⁶ Solar Astronomer⁷ from the University of Colorado Boulder⁸. In 1992, he and colleagues were leading a field course in Chaco Canyon when he noticed a unique carving on the south side of a rock.

金·马尔维尔是来自科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的一位退休的太阳天文学家。1992年，他和他的同事们在查科峡谷地区领导了一场实地研究，当时他在一块岩石的南面发现了一个独特的雕刻。

“…which was a round object with loops coming out of it, and it struck me as maybe this was an image of the sun with the corona⁹ in a very active state. And maybe at that time, there is what is known as a coronal mass ejection.”

“……那是一个圆形物体，上面刻有圆环图案。它让我感到震惊，我想这刻画的可能是太阳日冕处于一种非常活跃状态时的画像，也许当时发生了日冕物质抛射。”

That’s when a giant cloud of plasma¹⁰ spirals off the sun’s surface because of a solar flare¹¹. “It was somewhat foolhardy I suppose, on our part to suggest a particular explanation for it.” But Malville knew that he had a testable hypothesis.

日冕物质抛射是太阳耀斑导致一团巨大的等离子云从太阳表面盘旋开来的现象。“我想它可能是一种比较粗糙的诠释，用我们的方式对其进行了一种独特的解释。”不过，马尔维尔一知道一个可测试的假设。

Astronomers¹² knew that the region had a total solar eclipse on July 11, 1097. During the brief darkness, the sun’s corona would have been visible. Solar activity increases and decreases on a roughly 11-year cycle, so Malville used various historic records to find out what was happening in 1097.

天文学家知道该地区在1097年7月11日发生过一次日全食。在那段短暂的黑暗期间，太阳的日冕是可见的。太阳活动约以11年为周期，时烈时弱，因此，马尔维尔利用各种历史记录来查明1097年到底发生了什么。

“And all of these indicated that in 1097, the sun was indeed in a state of very high activity and thus, we couldn’t prove that this was actually an image of the corona, but we could not falsify our hypothesis.”

“所有这些都表明，在1097年，太阳确实处于非常强烈的活动状态，因此，我们无法证明它确实就是日冕的图像，但我们不能歪曲自己的假设。”

In another portion of Chaco Canyon, a pictograph high on an overhang has been interpreted as marking a supernova explosion in 1054. Below that, a pictograph may mark the sighting of Hailey’s Comet in 1066.

在查科峡谷的另一段，某悬崖高处的一幅古代石壁画被解读为标记1054年发生的超新星爆炸事件。其下方的一幅古代石壁画则可能标记的是1066年出现海雷彗星的景象。

“And all three of them may have played a role in intensifying¹³ people’s interest in the heavens and looking at the heavens very carefully.”

“这三幅壁画可能在强化人们对天堂的兴趣方面发挥着一定的作用，也表明当时人们非常仔细地观察着天空。”

Which is exactly what millions of current residents will be doing during this summer’s solar eclipse over North America.

这正是今年夏天北美洲日食期间，数以百万计的居民会做的事。